The Watchman

by Adrian Magson

  Just like that.

  I felt the hairs on my neck prickling all the way. I felt vulnerable like never before, as if stepping across a minefield. I was counting on being mistaken in the poor light for a patrolling guard. Not that I looked anything like a Somali pirate, but the rifle held loosely over my shoulder might throw off any suspicion.

  I reached the boats unchallenged and checked them out. They looked and felt ready for sea, and held the same kind of water and fuel containers I’d found in the boats I’d destroyed what felt like a lifetime ago. There were floats, nets, extra clothing, and even coils of rope with grappling hooks and rope ladders. Everything a pirate could wish for. Even the shelters were rigged with the canvas coverings in place, which I took to mean they were ready to move come morning.

  It made me even more determined; if I was right, come morning the boats would be gone and we would have no way out.

  I checked each of the engines by feel. One had a stripped-down feel, with sharp edges and recesses covered in thick grease and oil and layered in dirt, and was fitted with an extra-long propeller shaft. Tober had warned me to avoid these, as without silencers they were very noisy, slow and difficult to use in a strong sea. The other two were very different beasts; they were fitted with twin outboards, which felt like newer models, but I couldn’t tell if they had been disabled or not as the casings were in place and impossible to shift.

  Now was not the time to debate the issue. I ripped the power leads from the stripped-down engine and tossed them into the water. If we couldn’t use it, there was no point in allowing anybody else to do so. I couldn’t tell if either of the other two was in working order, so I’d have to get Tober to advise on them when we got back.

  Then I walked back up the beach and replaced my shoes, before making my way back past the villa and back into the bush.

  I reached the pickup and watched it for a few moments in case the searchers had come out this far and discovered it. Then I gave a brief whistle and walked across to the far side, where I’d left Tober.

  He was gone.

  Sixty-Five

  I checked inside and underneath the cab in case he’d heard a noise and ducked under the only cover available. No dice.

  I began searching the area around the truck, gradually widening the circle and hoping to pick up a trail. I kept telling myself that he couldn’t have gone far. Even if he was confused by shock and pain, he’d looked too done in to go anywhere without falling over.

  Ten paces out from the truck, I found the Vektor.

  It was nose down in the dirt, showing a glimpse of starlight off the barrel. I brushed it off and stowed it away. A little further on I found a scrape in the dirt where Tober must have stumbled and dragged his injured leg. At least I was on the right track.

  Another fifty paces out and I heard a low snuffling sound in the night somewhere ahead. Instinct told me it wasn’t human, but I couldn’t identify it for certain. I should have paid more attention to the National Geographic channel.

  It came again, this time followed by a bunch of squeaks and squeals, and my neck bristled. I knew what it was now, and it wasn’t good news. If Tober had stumbled on them, he was in grave danger.

  It was a warthog with young. Warthogs tend to avoid contact with humans, but when they have young with them, which this one did, and felt threatened, they’d attack anything that moved without hesitation.

  I stood very still and waited for the noises to be repeated so I could pinpoint their position. Neither the Vektor nor the AK were any defence against a charging adult warthog, especially in the dark. They could move with devastating speed and a hog’s tusks were a formidable weapon against soft human skin.

  Eventually I heard a crackling noise and a series of low grunts, gradually moving away.

  Then silence.

  It took me another ten minutes to locate Tober. He’d fallen into a small hollow, and lay almost hidden in shadow. I reached down and checked his pulse. It was there but weak.

  He was a lot worse than I thought.

  I risked using the flashlight. The side of his shirt was dark with fresh blood. He was leaking again. I shook him gently and he eventually lifted his head and looked up at me. He moved as if he were drunk. I couldn’t tell if that was because of the pain or exhaustion, but I was guessing falling into the hollow hadn’t helped.

  I eased him on to his feet and got him back to the pickup, where I propped him against the cab. If he went down again, I wasn’t sure I could lift him another time.

  ‘Stay with me, Doug. We’ve got to go.’ I gave his cheek a gentle slap. It was rough on him in his condition, but I needed him mobile and focussed for at least the next twenty minutes, otherwise we were done for.

  ‘OK, OK,’ he mumbled and swatted my hand away. It was a good sign.

  I collected the trauma kit and put it in my backpack and slung Tober’s AK over my shoulder, then pointed him towards the coast. I intended taking the most direct route I could find. It would place us uncomfortably close to the villa, but with Tober getting noticeably weaker and in no condition for a lengthy route march, I had no choice.

  We approached well away from the area where I’d seen the guard, but he’d changed his patrol route. The first indication I had was hearing a faint cough and a spit right where I thought would be clear space. Then I saw him. He was walking along the track, still looking fully alert, a rifle slung over his shoulder and head turning to listen over the noises of the night bugs. I froze and held on to Tober. Fortunately he got the message and went still.

  Getting us both across the track without being seen was going to be tough. It was wide here and Tober couldn’t move fast or stealthy any longer. And we didn’t have the time or energy to circle round.

  There was nothing for it. I let Tober sink slowly to the ground and put the AK down beside him.

  I didn’t want to have to do this, but it was the guard or us. I took out the Ka-Bar and moved forward, then waited for the guard to come back along the track.

  It didn’t take long. I heard the soft slap of his sandals on the hard earth. He was probably walking briskly to keep himself awake.

  I waited until he was almost past me, then stepped out behind him. He sensed my presence and began to turn, but too late. I slapped my free hand over his mouth from behind and thrust the knife into his ribs.

  He struggled momentarily, then stiffened and went still. I eased him down and dragged him off the track for some twenty paces, dumping the body into a dip in the earth. I took his spare AK magazine and stuffed it in my pocket, then hauled Tober back to his feet and we scuttled across the track into the bush.

  After that it was a relentless shuffling of one foot in front of the other until we hit the slope above the beach. I paused for a moment, out of breath and feeling nauseous. I hadn’t eaten enough to keep up my energy levels, and my arm around Tober was aching with the strain of holding him up. I checked our surroundings. I couldn’t see the villa guard from here due to the lay of the land, even though there was way more light than on my earlier trip.

  Great timing; just as we were going to have to walk right across the open beach to the water.

  Still, we had what we had. It was time to move.

  The trip across the sands seemed never-ending, and I was expecting to be challenged every step of the way. With the cloud cover shifting and exposing us, we would have looked an odd shape if anybody had been keeping an eye on the boats. I kept up a whispered commentary all the way to keep Tober in touch, letting him know how close we were. He didn’t respond but his legs kept moving, so I figured he was still in there somewhere, doing his bit.

  We passed the first boat with the stripped-down engine, the water slapping gently off the hull. I steered Tober towards the middle vessel. Maybe it was the familiar noise or the smell of the sea, but suddenly his feeling for boats seemed to kick in. He lifted his head and looked around at the long dark shapes and gave a nod of approval.

  ‘You picked a good one?’ he
asked, his words slurred. At least he remembered what he’d said to me earlier. Another good sign. His mental faculties were still in working order.

  ‘Two,’ I said. ‘Neither of them are dogs but you’ll have to check the engines and get one started. Can you do that?’

  He grunted and shoved me away. ‘Do it with my eyes closed, pal. Just watch. Don’t reckon I’ll be able to push, though.’

  He was looking down as he said this, and my gut went cold. I hadn’t noticed that the hull of the nearest boat was further up the sand than it had been earlier. It meant we’d have to move it by muscle-power alone.

  Tober wasn’t waiting; he clambered into the other boat which wasn’t as far aground, and I heard him humming slightly as he traced the engine casing with his fingers, patting it like you would a pet dog and mumbling in approval.

  ‘S’right to go, baby,’ he said, and waved at me. ‘C’mon, Portman, y’fuckin’ Yank landlubber. Time to go sailing.’

  I placed the backpack and rifles on board, then put my shoulder behind the boat and heaved. Nothing happened. It was firmly grounded.

  ‘Shit.’ Tober swore and almost fell out of the boat. He crouched down alongside me and put his shoulder against the stern, alongside the twin engines. ‘Nice,’ he muttered dreamily, patting the nearest casing, and I realized he was on automatic pilot, his mind taking over as a fever gradually took hold of him. ‘Go like shit off a shovel, these things.’

  ‘Push,’ I said, ‘or we’re going nowhere.’

  Then we heard a shout from near the top of the beach, followed by a shot being fired.

  We had outstayed our welcome; it was time to run.

  Sixty-Six

  Whatever energy Tober had left inside him resurfaced just in time. Or maybe it was the shot and pure survival instinct. With a grunt he leaned hard against the boat and I felt it shift smoothly into the water. It probably had something to do with him being out of the boat, or his feel for the weight and balance. Who knows?

  I threw my weight at it, digging in my heels as hard as I could. The boat was afloat. Tober gave a wild laugh and scrambled aboard, and did something to the twin engines, dropping them into position. Moments later, as I jumped in, they started up with a deafening roar and the boat seemed to leap forward like a startled gazelle, throwing me off my feet.

  I rolled across the bottom to where I’d dumped the rifles and came up facing the beach, AK in hand. And swore.

  In the rush to get moving I’d forgotten to disable the other craft.

  I fired several shots at the twin engine casings and a few more into the hull at water level, hoping I could do enough damage to make it unseaworthy. No float, no boat. I gave it another burst just to be sure, but by then we were bouncing through the waves and too far off to be certain of hitting anything.

  Several figures were now visible racing across the sand, weapons glinting in the moonlight. A couple of the men started shooting, but mostly into the air. Then one of them must have wised up because there was a shouted order and they stopped running and brought their guns to bear. The muzzle flares came first, then the sound of the shots reached us over the noise of the twin engines. One or two rounds came close, but by then we were two hundred metres offshore and moving fast out to sea, bouncing smoothly over the gentle inshore swell.

  A few minutes later, when the coastline had faded into the gloom, with only the white line of froth on the sand to mark its position, Tober turned south, cutting across the waves, which were now small to medium and not so smooth. Instinct and guts were driving him on, and I hoped he could stick at it for a while longer. I could handle the boat if I had to, but nothing makes up for the feel and experience of a seasoned boatman at the helm.

  I took out the phone and called Vale. This might be the last chance I got.

  ‘We’re offshore and clear, heading south,’ I told him, shouting over the engine noise. ‘The rest is up to you.’

  His voice was faint, but I was just able to pick out the words. ‘Got that. Call me when you make land.’ He cut the connection.

  We had been running for about twenty minutes, with no visible signs of pursuit, when I noticed the bow beginning to drift. First to port, then starboard. And the shift was getting wider each time. I looked at Tober. He was slumped against the side of the boat, one arm hugging the woodwork, the other just about holding on to the tiller.

  I scrambled across and helped him into the bottom of the boat where he’d be more comfortable. I couldn’t do anything to help him right now, so I grabbed the tiller and corrected our course. If I could keep this thing going in the right direction and ahead of any pursuit, we might be able to stay out of trouble.

  An hour later I stopped the boat to refuel. I had no idea of the range of these things, but leaving it too long and finding we were running out of fuel while being chased was a no-brainer. Although stationary in the water, we were being thrown around uncomfortably with the choppy action of the sea, and it made getting the fuel container into position and filling the tanks hard work, without keeping an eye out for pursuit. Eventually, though, liberally soaked with splashed fuel, I replaced the caps and stowed the fuel container away, and we set off again.

  At one point Tober seemed to rally. He lifted his hand and gave me a thumbs up sign, before falling asleep again. Whatever was keeping him going with two holes in him you simply couldn’t bottle, and I hoped if I was ever in the same position, I’d be able to do the same. I wanted to check on his condition, but didn’t dare stop again for fear of being caught.

  After another ninety minutes, with the first signs of light stretching across the horizon to the east, and shivering almost uncontrollably in the pre-dawn cold, I turned to check the coast, trying to figure out where we were from the map in my head. I guessed we might be somewhere near the island of Lamu, although I couldn’t separate it from the mainland, which was roughly two clicks to our right. If I was correct, it meant we were roughly halfway to Malindi and well inside Kenyan territory.

  A pity nobody bothered to tell the pirates.

  As I glanced back towards Kamboni, I saw a flicker of movement. It was there, then gone, merging against the sea. I slowed and blinked to clear my eyes, studying the area and looking slightly off to one side, wondering if tiredness was taking its toll. But no, there it was again, barely visible, a flash of something low on the water. A submarine? Way too close to shore.

  Then the swell of the sea shifted and the picture became clear. Three dots were heading out from the shoreline towards us. They were too indistinct to make out any detail but I knew what they were.

  Pirate skiffs. Musa had called up replacements.

  I increased speed, nearly losing control as the engines bit into the water and the boat sat back, the nose lifting like a startled racehorse. Too much. I throttled back, my heart pounding with the rush of adrenaline, increasing the speed slowly until I felt the boat settle into a smoother rhythm.

  When I next checked the position of the following boats, one was in the lead and kicking up a spray of white foam from powerful twin engines, with the other two not far enough behind. They were still a way off, running parallel to the coast but gradually moving out towards us, and I knew instinctively what they were doing: they were going to nudge us gradually out to sea and away from land, like cattle dogs controlling the herd. Then they would be able to finish us off at their leisure.

  Musa must have been feeling royally pissed at us with all this attention, and I guessed he wasn’t going to let this go, not now.

  I increased speed. It had an immediate effect. The nose lifted, but sheets of cold spray began coming inboard and stinging my face, and the impact of the hull on the water was instantly heavier, threatening to shake the planks apart. I had no idea what speed we were doing, but sensed that it would take just one wrong move of my arm on the tiller and the boat would turn and we’d become momentarily airborne before going terminal.

  End of game.

  Another twenty minutes later and the
lead boat was quickly gaining ground. It was coming up on a course further out to sea, while the others were holding station closer inshore. I recognized the tactics: the slower boats were ready to intercept us if we tried to make a break for land. It was another reminder that these men were old hands at this game. They had played it with much bigger vessels with huge engines and much further out at sea. They could dog us like this for as long as it took.

  Running us down was just a matter of time.

  I looked at Tober. He was still out of it. If he was as cold as me, it was probably a good thing to keep his body temperature down. Whatever I did now was going to have to be right. With no second chances, I had to carry on running, since staying to fight could only end one way. The men coming after us were also accustomed to spending long periods on the water and using weapons in an uneven and constantly shifting environment. All they had to do once they caught up was circle us like sharks and wait for an opening.

  To add to our problems, the sea began to change temperament the further south we travelled. I didn’t know if it was due to different currents or the shape of the ocean floor beneath us, but I could feel the tug and power of the water starting to take a greater hold on the boat, snatching at the nose and threatening to tip us over. I was forced to decrease speed to retain control as it threatened to swing away from me, and the boat began to bounce and dip, dropping with a crash into the troughs and ploughing through the waves head-on, showering us both with gallons of cold, salty water.

  I looked back. The boats were edging closer, the lead one alarmingly so, but still holding station slightly out from our position. With the increased light I could just make out figures standing almost casually upright, rifles held over the shoulders as if they were out on a day cruise. By now they would have entered the same area of rough water as us, but it wasn’t slowing them down one bit.